The government of Bangladesh and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Sunday jointly reviewed ADB-assisted projects of Bangladesh to improve and expedite project implementation to deliver better development results.
Senior government officials, project directors, and ADB officials from its headquarters and the Bangladesh Resident Mission (BRM) participated in the daylong review jointly chaired by Economic Relations Division (ERD) Joint Secretary Saifuddin Ahmed and ADB country director M Teresa Kho.
“Monitor-able time-bound actions were agreed to improve project implementation to achieve development targets,” said Country Director M Teresa Kho.
“The TPRM exercises have already helped improve project implementation, but we’ll continue to work with the government to further unlock aid flows,” she added.
Actions agreed at the TPRM include addressing root causes of project start-up delays, accelerating procurement actions by ensuring quality of bid documents, reducing time for completing high quality evaluation reports, and processing fund disbursements quickly and timely.
The TPRM also discussed early preparation and approval of Development Project Proposal (DPP), raising capacity for DPP preparation and procurement, and strict adherence to project readiness filters before loan approvals.
ADB assistance to Bangladesh currently amounts over $900 million a year. As one of the lead development partners in energy, water supply and sanitation, agriculture and natural resources, education, and transport sectors, ADB’s cumulative lending to Bangladesh amounts to $14.1 billion for 234 loans, while the technical assistance grants for 425 projects stood at $230.80 million until August 2013.
ADB portfolio for Bangladesh currently includes 55 loans and 17 grant projects amounting to $5.20 billion.
Source: UNBConnect